


The Intruders.

by Ella_Blackheart



Series: The Holy Blood. [5]
Category: Fable (Video Games), Fable 2 (Video Game), Fable 3 (Video Game)
Genre: Abusive Parents, Abusive Relationships, Bullying, Children, Domestic Violence, Gen, Ghosts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-26
Updated: 2018-05-26
Packaged: 2019-05-13 22:23:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14757401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ella_Blackheart/pseuds/Ella_Blackheart
Summary: While waiting for Jacques, her husband, to return from The Spire, Alex and her young daughter, Rose, are stalked by a sinister presence.Set somewhere in between Fable 2 and 3





	The Intruders.

**Author's Note:**

> WARNING: This story contains mild references to domestic violence, violence against children, and children death

***  
  
"Mommy, Do you think dad will be home anytime soon?" Rose, my twelve year old daughter, asked in between mouthfuls of blueberry pie.   
  
We were having tea and desserts on a blanket underneath a large tree, right next to the beautiful flower patch. That was our favorite place in the whole farm. I could not remember exactly when it was that so many lilies, chrisantemums, and roses -all white- began to bloom together on that particular spot. I had not planted them, and neither had Rose. It was almost as though they had just appeared overnight.   
  
"I can't wait to finally meet him!" Her jam-stained face lit up with a dreamy smile. Jacques, my husband, had left for the Spire -some sort of magical prison in the middle of the sea - when she was just a baby.   
  
"I'm sure he'll be very happy to finally see you all grown up."    
  
I wanted to reassure her, tell her it wouldn't be long before she could finally see her father, the greatest Hero in all of Albion.   
  
Life on our secret farm was good and peaceful, and it was quite easy to lose track of time. And, even if most days went by without us noticing, there were others when it felt as if we had been waiting on him forever.   
  
"I wonder if he thinks about us up there" Rose took another bite of pie. Never had I met anyone as enthusiastic about sweets as she was.   
  
"Of course he does!" I took a small handkerchief out of my apron's pocket and wiped the jam off her pretty face. "I'm sure your father thinks about us every minute of every day."   
Whenever Rose smiled at me, I felt like I was looking at Jacques. She had the same golden locks of hair and honey colored eyes. But more than just their physical resemblance, Rose's face was filled with the same careless joy that illuminated Jacques'. Like her father, Rose was kind and brave; always looking for a way to make the world a little bit better. And the both of them were just too good to be true.   
  
Too good for someone like me.   
  
I had not been a perfect person. Once in my youth, I had hurt someone beyond repair. My cowardice had caused my first fiance to end his life. Ironically, that same mistake was what led Jacques to me. My beloved husband, who was incapable of keeping a secret, had once told me everything about how Victor's ghost had recruited him on a quest to win my heart, just so he could break it later on and give me a taste of my own medicine. But Jacques, who was the kindest of all men, kept true to his honor, and married me instead. Eventually -and probably inspired by my husband's kindness- Victor's ghost forgave me for what I had done to him, and was able to move on to the next realm.   
  
I couldn't help but feel like I had been rewarded, when I should have been punished instead.   
  
Being married to a Hero like Jacques was not an easy thing, in any case. He would come and go as he pleased, and sometimes his absences could extend for weeks or -in this particular case- even years. He must have only seen his daughter a handful of times during her lifetime. But he always came back. Rose and I were, after all, the only family he had. We, were his home.  
  
"Look at what I made for daddy." Rose put down her empty plate and showed me a small figurine made out of clay, and hand-painted by her. It was a representation of Jacques, taken from the portrait I kept over the fireplace. Everything had been sculpted with great attention to detail, from the wrinkles on his clothes, to the metallic color of his sword. "Do you think it looks like him?"   
  
"It certainly does!" I smiled proudly at my daughter. Rose had always been very skilled when it came to crafting. "Your father is going to love it!"   
  
"It took me so long to get it right" Rose looked at the figurine and furrowed her brow. "I can't really remember when I started making it, though. Isn't that a bit strange?"   
  
"Oh dear, don't worry too much about it. You know how forgetful we can be." I reassured her. It was not unusual for us not to remember things every now and then. "Why don't you put it on the shelf with your other treasures?" Rose nodded and ran into the house.   
  
I gathered the plates from our little tea party, and followed her shortly after. I cleaned up the dishes and finished my afternoon chores, while she recorded the events from our day in her diary. At night, I tucked her into bed, and occupied myself in mending one of her old dresses. I was not much of a sleeper myself, and usually stayed up until very late at night.   
  
It was a bit past ten, when I heard footsteps coming down the stairs.   
  
"Mommy, I'm hearing voices." Rose was still clad in her pink nightgown, and her honey-colored eyes were filled with concern.   
  
"What kind of voices?" I stopped my work and looked at her. "You know no creature from the outside can come onto our land." Our farm,which had once been a retreat for old Heroes, was protected inside a magical door, designed to keep away the dangerous creatures that prowled around Albion.   
  
"I don't know, just voices." Rose looked down, and shifted her weight uncomfortably from one foot to another. "But they don't seem to like our home very much. They say it's a peasant's den, and they can't believe a Hero would want to live here."   
  
"Do they know about your father?" I asked, aware that Jacques' status as a Hero was prone to attract some unwanted attention.   
  
"I think so..." Rose frowned. "I don't like them, mommy."   
  
"Are they trying to hurt you?" I wasn't sure whether or not to believe her. Jacques had reassured me many times regarding the safety of our farm.   
  
Rose shook her head, and turned to look upstairs nervously. "They want me to play with them. They say they're bored."   
  
"Bored spooks, how about that?" Although ghosts were not unusual in Albion, the only real experience I'd had with their kind had been that of Victor. And, even if my ex-fiancé's spirit had shown a vindictive nature, he had been mostly harmless. There was no reason for me to think this 'entities' -supposing they were real, and not a figment of my daughter's imagination- would be any different. "Well, next time they bother you, just tell them to go and clean the coop. That should keep them entertained."   
  
Rose smiled softly, although she did not seem entirely content with my suggested course of action.   
  
"I'll tuck you in, alright?" I offered "And I'll stay with you until you fall asleep."   
  
I led her back up into the bedroom. There wasn't anything out of the ordinary. Maybe her whole story about the voices, had been nothing but a trick to get me into giving her some extra attention. Rose was not prone to lies, but I knew the long absence of her father had been difficult for her. Given the seclusion of our farm, she did not have many friends either. Most of the time I was her only company.  
  
I looked at the shelf where Rose had placed the tiny figurine she had made of Jacques, along with her most valuable treasures. Her diary, on which she wrote almost every day, and a cardboard crown she had crafted at the age of four, when she had been completely obsessed with the idea of being a princess. All of them were clear signs of Rose's creative spirit. Why wouldn't she be able to come up with something like 'mysterious voices'?   
  
Once she was fast asleep, I kissed her forehead one last time, and went back downstairs to finish my mending. Everything was just the way I had left it; Rose's dress was still on the table, and my thread and needle were right next to it. Nothing had been moved, or even changed in the slightest, and yet, I got the strangest feeling that someone else was in there with me.   
  
I stayed up for a few more hours, and tried to concentrate on my sewing. However, every few moments, I caught myself looking at the stairs, half-expecting to find my daughter standing there.   
  
  
***  
  
  
"Mommy! Wake up!" Rose shook me awake the next morning. As usual, I had fallen asleep in my chair. "You have to see this!"   
  
I followed her into the bedroom once again, my body still heavy with slumber, and my back aching from spending the night in such an uncomfortable position.   
  
"Look, mommy." She took Jacques' figurine from the shelf and handed it to me. It looked almost the same as it had the day before, only this time there was a small crown on its head.   
  
"Did you do this?" I examined the figurine. Rose had always liked to play princess; it could be expected for her to fancy her own father to be a king. However, the work on the tiny crown did not match her usual craftsmanship. It was clumsy and rushed, very unlike my daughter's careful attention to every detail. A small symbol had been drawn at the very center, but it took me a moment to recognize it. It was the same symbol that was emblazoned upon what Jacques called, 'The Guild Seal'. But Rose had never seen it before.  
  
"I didn't!" She sighed in frustration. "It was them! They did it while I was sleeping!"   
I frowned, not sure what to think. There was a small chance Rose was lying for the first time in her life.   
  
What kind of ghosts would put a crown on Jacques' figurine, silently encouraging one of my daughter's deepest fantasies? However, there was the matter of the symbol. I had only seen it on the seal my husband used to carry with him at all times, and Jacques had left when she was just a baby. There was no way Rose could have known about it.   
  
"Maybe you should go get me some eggs from the coop for breakfast" Was all I could say.   
We went about our activities around the farm as usual, and a couple of days passed without Rose mentioning the voices again. By the third morning, I was fully convinced she had made up the whole thing.   
  
I was glad that she chose not to carry on with her fantasy, and decided to bake her an apple pie for our daily picnic.   
  
I walked into the orchard a little bit after noon. Maybe it was because of the magic that imbued our land, but the trees were always full of ripe fruit ready to be eaten. This time, however, things were different. All of the apples had been taken down from the trees and were scattered on the ground. Some of them were badly bruised, while others were already bitten. It was only a single bite, made by a very small mouth, as if someone -probably my daughter- had tasted all of the fruits, and simply discarded them. There were barely any left undamaged, certainly not enough to make a pie.   
  
That was the first time I had ever felt the need to discipline Rose. She cried, and told me over and over again it had not been she who ruined our apples. Once again, she placed the blame on 'them'. I yelled at her, said I had enough of her childish lies. That was also the first day we did not have our afternoon tea by the flower patch.   
  
It took us a few days for things to go back to normal. Almost. Rose was a sweet, compliant girl. She did not mention 'them' again. Although I could see her looking over her shoulder from time to time.   
  
One morning, while I was feeding the chickens, I heard my daughter screaming from across the field.   
  
"STOP IT! You're getting me in trouble!" Her usually soft voice was filled with desperation. "If you are so bored, why don't you go and clean the coop?!" She screamed what I had told her to say in case 'they' bothered her again.   
  
I dropped the basket I had been carrying, and rushed across the orchard to find her. I arrived just in time to see her being shoved by invisible hands. Rose held her ground, and ran as fast as she could towards the house. But something pushed her out of the way and, before she got there, slammed the door shut.   
  
"It didn't work, mommy!" She turned to look at me, her eyes wide as saucers. "I made them angry!"   
  
I helped her pull on the doorknob. Whatever was holding us back wasn't strong enough to stop the both of us. It must have realized this as soon as we did, for it stopped fighting and pushed the door our way instead.   
  
Rose and I fell down, and I swore I could hear a child giggle and run upstairs.   
While I had to take a minute to catch my breath, Rose sprung back up and took off after the entity.   
  
"Please, stop!" I heard her cry out. "I'm sorry!"  
  
When I made it into the bedroom, the sound of children laughing could be heard clearly among Rose's own pleas for mercy. Being the coward that I am, all I could do was freeze on the spot, and stare at the scene developing before my eyes.  
  
Rose was on her knees, begging for the entities to stop tormenting her, and apologizing profusely.   
  
Meanwhile Jacques' figurine flew across the room from one side to another, like some invisible creatures were playing catch with it.   
  
"Please!" Rose cried "I made that for my daddy!"   
  
"You don't deserve him, peasant!" Said, what I could only guess was the voice of a very young girl. " Besides, he is not your daddy anymore!"   
  
Jacques' figurine crashed on the floor and broke into many pieces.   
  
The room went completely silent. Rose curled into a ball and wept. I went to her side and held her close to me.   
  
"They were angry because I told them to clean the coop." She said bitterly between sobs "They said it is beneath them, that they are not peasants like me."   
  
I felt guilty for not having taken her more seriously the night before, when she first came to me for help. Instead, all I could give her was some nonsense that only made things worse. Even when Rose had never given me any reason to doubt her, I had still disregarded her first warning.   
  
"I don't want to sleep here tonight, mommy." She held tightly onto me, her body shaking with fear.   
  
"Me neither, darling." I did my best to keep my own voice from breaking, so as not to upset her any further. "Why don't we go into Oakfield, and get a room at the Inn? It will be like an adventure."   
  
"But, what if daddy comes home and we are not here?" Rose looked at me, her face filled with concern. "Wouldn't he be worried?"   
  
"We'll leave him a note" I said. "That way he'll know where to find us."   
  
I silently prayed for Jacques to come home. If anyone could help us with the intruders, it could only be him. Under normal circumstances, he would have known something was wrong with his family, no matter where he was; but, ever since he left for The Spire, all contact between us had been completely broken.   
  
We packed only a few things and headed for the door. I was not happy to leave our house at the mercy of those creatures.  
  
I could not remember the last time I had walked out of our home's magical doorway, and ventured into Oakfield. Given the fact we still had fresh food on our table, it couldn't have been that long ago. But the image of me actually going to the market to buy anything kept on escaping my memory.   
  
We walked the small path as fast as our legs could take us. Rose still looked back towards the house every now and then, as if making sure the intruders were not following us. I held her hand and urged her to keep moving. We had to get away from the farm as soon as possible.   
  
I prayed for Jacques' prompt return. He had been away for far too long already. Hopefully, once he came back, my husband, the greatest Hero of all time, would reclaim our farm from the intruders.   
  
The magical barrier that separated us from the outside world was only a few steps away. I hurried towards it, and out of pure instinct, reached out my arm to touch it. Such an unconscious gesture, prevented me from slamming my face against it, for instead of letting us through, the barrier felt solid like a wall.   
  
I let go of Rose's hand and pounded my fists against it. It just wasn't right, the magic was meant to protect us from the outside, not to keep us locked inside.   
  
"No, no, no..." I hit it as hard as I could. "We cannot be trapped in here!"   
  
"Mommy calm down!" It was only when I heard Rose's pleading voice, that I realized just how desperate I must have looked.   
  
"We will be fine." She rushed to comfort me, when it should have been the other way round. "Daddy will come home, and he is going to help us."   
  
"They only got mad at me because I told them to clean the coop." She continued, gently stroking my hand. "But... maybe if I am nice to them, they will not bother us anymore. They only wanted to play, after all."   
  
I didn't know what to say. My daughter, brave like her father, was showing a lot more strength than even I was capable of.   
  
"Let's go sit by the flower patch." Rose forced a smile onto her face. "I bet the ghosts will not bother us there."   
  
Ghosts. There was something wrong with that term. Everyone in Albion had seen a ghost at least once. Such occurrences were nothing out of the ordinary. The intruders were different, however; unlike regular spirits, whose forms were that of translucent humans, the entities in our house did not appear to have any shape at all.  
  
"Can you actually see them?" I asked Rose "The intruders, I mean."   
  
"They are like shadows." She shuddered and let out a sigh. "There are only two of them, but the smaller is the worst one by far."   
  
I felt genuinely afraid. I had only heard about shadow-children once before, when Jacques told me about the Banshee he had fought... Where? And when exactly had he told me anything about such creatures? No... that must have been after... But... I felt a horrible headache, and the world went black for a second.   
  
"MOMMY!!" I heard Rose calling for me, and snapped back into consciousness. Not quite sure of what I was thinking before. "Mommy, are you alright?"   
  
"I... I'm just tired, dear." I whispered, unable to explain what had just happened.  
  
"We should go back to the house." Rose was afraid, I could hear it in her voice, but her concern for me was far greater than her fear. "Maybe if we sleep downstairs they will not bother us."   
  
I set up two cots by the fireplace underneath Jacques' portrait. Rose and I ate our dinner in silence, vigilant and alert for any sign of the intruders. The only thing we heard was the occasional giggle coming from the room upstairs. They were still in the house; but somehow contented with having invaded our bedroom.   
  
"Try to get some sleep, darling." I removed our plates from the table, trying to regain some sense of normality. "I'll stay up and keep watch."   
  
Rose tried to protest, but my poor girl was so tired, she eventually complied. Within minutes, she had fallen into a deep, if somewhat uneasy, slumber.   
  
The giggling continued upstairs. It was the voice of a child, almost like Rose's when she was younger. I tried to ignore it as best I could, and tried to entertain myself with some knitting. I focused on the yarn and the needles; anything to keep my mind away from the noises upstairs. I never heard the soft footsteps coming my way.   
  
Something happened. I could not explain it at the time; but it felt like someone or something had slipped into me, and we were trying to occupy the same space at the same time. The voice upstairs became a lot clearer. I could tell it was from a young girl, and I noticed the malicious undertone concealed beneath her seemingly innocent laughter. Her presence filled me with dread, and, oddly enough, at the same time it gave me a sense of comfort.   
  
I felt overwhelmed with pressures and burdens beyond measure, like the weight of the world had been suddenly laid upon me. I felt lonely and frightened, like a child trapped inside a room with no doors or windows. I wanted to run away; to take off into the night and disappear forever to a faraway land where nobody could ever find me. To become invisible to the hundreds of eyes who scrutinized my every move, eager to prove I was not prepared for the position I had been forced to assume. I wanted to jump from the highest tower of a castle, and plunge head first into my death.   
  
But I also felt the bitter desperation of knowing what I wanted was of no consequence. I was condemned to suffer, and I had to endure and be strong for the sake of the girl laughing upstairs.   
  
Out of a will that wasn't my own, I dropped my knitting on the table, and brought my hand to my lips. The tips of my fingers felt raw and sore, and my nails were all bitten. Still, as if my hands hadn't suffered enough damage, I took the tip of my thumb between my teeth and was about to pull...   
  
"STOP IT!" The girl's voice commanded from the stairs. "You know I hate it when you do that!"   
  
I snapped out of my trance. My hands went back to normal, and the house became quiet all of a sudden.   
  
If the giggling had been unsettling, the silence that followed was even worse. I sat in my chair, still shaken from what I had just experienced, and waited for the intruder's next outburst. I kept looking towards the stairs over and over again, trying to find some reassurance that they were gone. Exhaustion took over eventually, and I fell asleep on the table again.   
  
  
***  
  
  
I was briskly awoken by Rose's screams.  
  
The cot she had been sleeping in was empty. Her voice was coming from outside the house. I ran to her aid as fast as I could, hardly registering upon the light sound of footsteps coming down the stairs behind me.   
  
Rose was crouching down next to the flower patch, our most sacred place on the whole farm. She cried and screamed. Her crown, the one she had made when she was only four and was one of her most valued treasures, had been brutally torn apart and set on fire.   
  
I could not see the creature tormenting my daughter, but its voice was loud and clear. It was the one who appeared to be a young girl; but its words were filled with such cruelty, I could not conceive it being anything other than a demon.   
  
"The fake princess had a fake crown..." It sang in a childish tune. "... And she put it on her head full of lice..."   
  
"Leave me alone!" Rose pleaded.   
  
"You are not a real princess! That's why daddy never loved you!" The creature's words were full of venom and disdain.   
  
"You don't know anything about my father!" Rose wiped the tears from her eyes, and stood up. "He is a Hero, the most powerful in all Albion! He will come home, and you will be sorry!"   
  
"Stupid peasant!" The creature laughed "Daddy stopped loving you because he had me! Only I deserved his love! Only I can be the real princess! And only I deserve the real crown!"   
  
Just when I was about to reach Rose's side, the second entity spoke behind me.   
  
"What are you doing?!" Although the voice resembled that of another child, it was loaded with weariness and affliction.   
  
"Nothing!" The creature's voice changed swiftly, from cruel and vicious, to innocent and joyous. "I found this on a shelf, and thought it would be fun to make it burn."   
  
"You shouldn't be playing with fire!" The second entity scolded its companion, like Rose and I were not even there. "You could hurt yourself."   
  
"You are such a bore!" The creature that had been tormenting my daughter complained. "That's why nobody likes you!"   
  
We had a few more days of silence after that episode. However, I could see Rose had been deeply affected by the destruction of her treasures. First Jacques' figurine, and then her crown. Her eyes were full of grief and helplessness, and she remained in a constant state of alert; jumping at the slightest sound.   
  
We remained confined to the lower floor of our home, sleeping on the cots we had set by the fireplace, while the intruders remained the sole occupants of our bedroom. Neither of us dared to walk up the stairs and confront them.   
  
What kind of entities were haunting our farm? Their voices were those of children, but there was something deeply wrong about them both. The first one, the sadist that got its pleasure from tormenting my daughter, was far too cruel, and too malicious to be a child. And the second one, the poor soul who's feelings I must have experienced that night in my chair, was desolate and overburdened with pressures only fit for an adult, and a very strong one at that.   
  
I knew very little about the many creatures that prowled around Albion. Jacques only spoke briefly about his travels whenever he was home. The exact nature of the intruders -as well as any ideas on how to fight them- were beyond my understanding. All I knew, was that there were only two of them; but I could not say if there was some sort of hierarchy between them, or if they could be reasoned with.   
  
Why were they so obsessed with Rose to begin with? Was it because of her fathers' precious blood? But Rose had never manifested any of Jacques' powers. She was just a normal girl. And, if it wasn't Rose, what was it they were after? They did not seem to want anything other than to torment my daughter for the sake of it.   
  
During the day, we kept ourselves busy with the farm's work. We fed the chickens, and harvested fruits from the orchard. We ate our lunch by the flower patch, and tried not to think about the intruders in our home.   
  
But every day, when dusk arrived, and with it the dreaded moment when we had to go back into the house, our hearts sank with the possibility of another attack.   
  
I felt like a fool when I realized that I spent most of my day wishing for Jacques' miraculous return. I kept on taking sideways glances towards the path, eager to see his enormous figure approaching. I wanted nothing more than to be able to meet him halfway between the barrier and the house, and wrap my arms around his back. I yearned to tell him all about the intruders, and to see him use his magnificent powers to get rid of them. I longed for the moment, when Rose and I would be safe by his side. But the sky went dark every time, and there were no signs of Jacques coming home to save us. At the end of every day he was still gone, serving inside The Spire, and the intruders were still in our house.   
  
  
***  
  
  
The hearth was burning when we walked in one night, all three of our oil lamps had been lit and placed on top of the fireplace, illuminating Jacques' portrait. The intruders had drawn a crown upon his head.   
  
Rose's diary lay wide open on the table. She looked at it , and stiffened with fear.   
"Stay here, love." I let go of her hand, and went to see what the intruders had done.   
Rose's diary had been left open right in the middle. There was a mocking entry written on one page.  
  
_Dear Diary:  
  
My mum and I are ugly, peasant pigs, and that's why daddy never loved us.   
  
I wear a fake crown, because I'm stupid and don't know I'm not a princess.   
  
And I'm jealous of the one true princess because she's prettier than me.  
  
My head is bald because I have lice. And I smell like chicken poop.   
  
Rose.  
  
P.S. An evil man is going to come and slaughter me and my family like the pigs we are._  
  
  
I heard a giggle coming from beside the fireplace. Furious, particularly after reading the last line, I turned my head to look in that direction, and was finally able to see one of the intruders. It was like the very black silhouette of a small girl, smaller than Rose. She seemed to be wearing a very frilly, elaborate dress, like that of a porcelain doll. Her eyes glowed a bright yellow, and her mouth was filled with pointy teeth. Those were the only distinguishable features on her black face.   
  
The tiny intruder seemed to be fully aware of just how helpless we were; and she took pleasure in it. Her mouth expanded into a large grin, and she laughed with the voice of a child.   
  
"Leave us alone!" Unwilling to endure any more of her torment without a fight, I reached for the nearest thing I could find -a mug- and threw it at the creature.   
  
I half expected for the mug to simply go through the entity's head; but it actually managed to hit her, and send her falling onto her backside. She just sat there for a second, her bright yellow eyes looking around the room. She blinked a couple of times, and let out the loudest shriek I've ever heard.   
  
I heard light footsteps rushing down the stairs, as the second intruder hurried to its companion's side. Unlike the one on the floor, this entity was not completely dark, but more like a perfectly neutral gray. It was more ethereal, a bit cloud-like. It was torn and broken in some areas, where holes and gashes deconstructed its shape, up to the point where it looked barely human. And yet, despite it's ghastly form, it was the less menacing of the two.   
  
"What happened?" Its voice was that of a young boy, around Rose's age "Are you alright?"  
  
"They attacked me!" The smaller one whined. "I told you this place was haunted!"   
  
"Haunted, as in ghosts?" The taller entity's voice was full of doubt, yet he helped the other one back onto her feet. "Don't worry, I've heard ghosts are mostly harmless. In any case, I won't let them hurt you."   
  
"But they already hurt me! Can't you see?" She cried out, full of rage."You can't let them get away with it! We need to destroy them!"   
  
"No! Wait!" I spoke, but the creatures did not seem to hear me "We are not demons!"   
  
"The only way I know to get rid of them is by fire, we must..." The taller entity started speaking, but before he could finish, the small one had already taken hold of one of the oil lamps.   
  
"WAIT!" Both the entity and I yelled in unison. It was useless, however. The small creature took a few steps towards Rose, and held the lamp above her head.   
  
"Take this, fake princess!" She smashed the lamp onto the floor.   
  
"NO!" I ran to push my daughter away from the flames and out the door. Caught in the emergency, I did not pay much attention to our movements, but it seemed like we had ran straight through the fire without suffering any damage. We did not stop until we reached the flower patch. Only then did I turn to look at the house.  
  
I saw one of the windows breaking, and the taller entity jumping through it, wrapped around the smaller one, as if to protect her. They rolled down on the grass, still clinging to each other, until they were just a few steps away from us. Oddly enough, even in their shadow-forms, they looked a lot more beaten than Rose and I.   
  
"What were you thinking?!" The taller creature untangled himself from his companion. I noticed his arms were now covered in tiny red gashes, wounds caused by the window breaking. He sat down on the grass, as if trying to catch his breath.   
  
"I got rid of the demons!" The small creature stood up. She was mostly unharmed, except for the hem of her frilly skirt. "And got my dress ruined in the process!"   
  
"Your... dress?" The second entity asked, his voice filled with frustration "You could have killed us both!"   
  
"It was you who said only fire could destroy them!" The little one was oblivious to anyone but herself, as she kept on inspecting the hem of her dress.   
  
"I did not mean for you to burn down their house!" The tall one cried out "We have to burn down their graves!"   
  
_Graves?_  
  
 _Our... graves?_  
  
What were they talking about? Rose and I were not dead.   
  
I reached out and touched the taller entity, trying to get his attention. The moment my hand made contact with him, a stream of long buried memories came flowing back into my mind. I gasped, finally able to recall the horrors that were the final years of my life.  
  
Jacques had been at The Spire for little over a decade. The young Hero I had loved left us when Rose was just a baby, and he never came back. At least not as I remembered him.  
  
_What_ returned in his place was a monster. Even if he still looked like Jacques, even if it was the same body, the man -if such thing could even be called a person- that walked back into our lives, had nothing to do with the loving husband I once knew.   
  
The eyes of this new Jacques had been stripped of all their former carelessness and joy, and filled only with an imitation of feelings. On the outside, he still appeared to be the same kindhearted Hero everyone knew and admired, and his golden aura still shone bright around him. But, in the privacy of our farm, he was cruel and violent, prone to sudden episodes of rage and brutality, that more often than not ended with me on the floor begging for mercy, and covered in bruises.   
  
I recalled the terror Rose and I experienced, whenever we heard his heavy footsteps coming down the path; and the sad relief it gave us whenever he left again.   
  
My heart broke, when I remembered my second child, -a sweet boy I called Marc- conceived one of those nights, when my body was the only tool I had to placate the beast laying beside me on the bed.   
  
How could I have forgotten my own son?   
  
My final memory was that of another man -not Jacques- who crept into our home one night. His name,  had been Lucien Fairfax. He had murdered Jacques' sister many years before, and he came to do the same with me and my children.   
  
The entity groaned in pain, and a second set of memories appeared inside my head. But this time, they were not my own.   
  
I could see an elegant woman, with long black hair, being thrown against the wall of an opulently decorated room by one of Jacques' spells. Two children cowering into a corner, and holding tight against each other before the little girl, barely older than a baby, was snatched from her brother's arms. I screamed in horror when I saw her gasping for breath, her tiny face turning purple, while Jacques' huge hand clenched around her neck.   
  
I wanted to shut myself to the memories the entity was transferring into my head. The many nights filled with screams and arguments, and the mornings of broken glass and ominous silences. The dread whenever those heavy footsteps I knew all too well approached, and the utter terror of seeing his huge figure appearing in the doorway.   
  
Finally, I saw Jacques lying dead inside a coffin made of glass; his body on display at The Temple of Light, while thousands of people paid their respects. But, as the crowd grieved their fallen Hero, I could see the relief in the face of his other wife; the black haired beauty he had married long after my own death. There was no sadness in the eyes of their children either, a boy and a girl. Rose and Marc's half-siblings.  
  
With the realization of my own death, I could finally see the intruders for what they really were; the children from my memory. My hand, now of a translucent blue color, rested on the boy's shoulder. He must have been younger than Rose had been when she died; but his big dark eyes were filled with burdens and weariness beyond his years. It was not evident at first sight, for his face was gaunt and pale like he had some sort of illness, but I had seen his father's features enough times to know this boy could have looked a lot like him.   
  
The one standing next to him must not have been older than eight. If Rose's gentle face reminded of all that had been good in Jacques, of the man he was before he left for The Spire, this girl was the very image of the monster that came back. Her eyes, the same honey color of Rose's, were soulless, like Jacques' had been after his return, only able to imitate emotion. I felt sorry for her -Jacques had broken his own daughter beyond repair.   
  
I detached myself from the boy, and turned to look at the gravestones that appeared where our flower patch had been.   
  
Marc Langley. My son, who, by the grace of being very young at the time of his death, and untainted with memories of his father before The Spire, had been able to move on immediately onto the next realm.  
  
Rose Langley II. My daughter, named after Jacques' sister, who had chosen to remain by my side, frozen in the happiest days of our lives, when we still waited hopefully for her father to return.   
  
Alexandria Langley. I smiled bitterly at the sight of my own grave.  
  
The three of us had been Jacques' first family, and Lucien Fairfax had murdered us all. And yet, I felt we had fared much better than his other family; at least I had the chance to know my husband's good side.  
  
"Mother!" Rose called out for me. "Look!" She pointed at our house, that stood completely unharmed from the fire. The door was open wide, and a warm, golden light, glowed from it.  
  
Rose, whose body was now, like mine -a translucent figure- and whose age had suddenly reverted to the young woman she had been at the time of her death, held out her hand to me."Our wait is over! We can go home!"   
  
"Just give me a minute, love." I turned to give one last look at Jacques' other children. They were completely oblivious to our presence, and I could tell by the look on their faces that the house was still burning for them.   
  
"We have to go back to the castle." The boy's arms and back were covered with tiny wounds, from when he jumped out of the window to save his sister.   
  
The girl hesitated for a moment, and suddenly, as if on cue, her eyes filled with tears.  
  
"Oh, Logan!" She cried out, and her lower lip trembled slightly. "When Walter and the others find out I burned down the farm, they're going to hate me!"   
  
"You will be fine, Lenna." The boy, Logan, smiled sadly at his sister. "I'll take the blame for you. Again."   
  
"Will you do that for me?!" The girl, Lenna, widened her eyes in perfectly simulated surprise "But... They will hate you!"   
  
"I know, but I don't care." He smirked "I'm still the king. There's nothing they can do against me."   
  
"Aren't you the best brother ever?!" She smiled brightly, and held on to his arm.   
  
I shook my head, as I watched them leave the farm together.   
  
"Are you afraid they'll try to hurt us again?" Rose held my hand, and I turned to look at her.   
  
"No, darling. They can't hurt us anymore." We walked towards the house, finally ready to go home. "They can only hurt themselves."

 


End file.
